My Very Own Crystal Legend
by That's Professor Hawke
Summary: My name is Nathan Redgrave. I used to be useless. Now I'm some kind of interdimensional freak of nature. Also, I'm in a Final Fantasy game. Just another day in the life... Fadeshifter Series, Book 2-C
1. Prologue: How It Started

**Author's Note:** Here we go again... another new "self-insert" story (I use quotes there because I don't really think of Nathan Redgrave as my "self," but rather as a separate character based loosely off myself) in what I've come to think of as the "Fadeshifter" series. As for what the connections are between this, _From Beyond the Beyond_, and _Mass Effect: Insertion_ are, those are going to become fairly apparent as this particular story moves forward... so stay tuned.

Or not. It's entirely up to you, after all, I'm not your mom.

**Disclaimer:** The _Final Fantasy_ franchise belongs to Square Enix, and it's sufficiently well-known that you shouldn't need me to actually say that unless you've been living under a rock for the past decade-and-a-half. As an entirely unrelated note, is it too much to ask that someone out there with some modicum of writing talent compose a decent _Final Fantasy _crossover fic that doesn't revolve around ZOMGSLASH? That'd be great, thanks.

**~V~**

**My Very Own Crystal Legend  
**- a _Final Fantasy XIII_ fan-novel -  
by  
That's Professor Hawke

**~V~**

**- Prologue -  
**"**How It Started"**

**~V~**

Where do I begin? How does one even commence to express the sheer depths of fucked-uppery that would need to be put into words before anyone other than I or my mind-reading girlfriend could comprehend just how bizarre and unbelievable our lives have become?

How about the fact that, as of now, there are technically three of me, but all of us exist in different dimensions. Despite the dimensional barriers between me, myself, and I... all three of us periodically dream the others' memories and wake up knowing the gist of what each of the others has been through since last we "synced up" in the Fade?

Or maybe I should back up and explain exactly _why _there are three of me. You see — and I swear to whatever deity may or may not actually be reading this, I shit you most _definitely _not — one day I put my head down on the kitchen table to rest my eyes, dozed off, and woke up _in a completely different universe_. As if that weren't wild enough, the universe in question was quite distinct and recognizable: it was the real-world incarnation of the galaxy portrayed in a videogame trilogy called _Mass Effect_.

I made the most of my peculiar situation, more than I can imagine most other unemployed layabouts would manage in the same fix. I cooked up a vaguely believable story for why there were no records of my existence at all, I invented a new name and identity for myself, and I enlisted in the Systems Alliance military as soon as I had the chance to. If the truth be put to print, this was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Finding myself stranded in that place with no one to rely on but myself and my own wits, it forced me to shape up... and military training is one of the surest ways to achieve this.

Would I have gone back to my old life? Not a chance. Nobody will ever miss that worthless husk I used to be. I'm sure even my family will get over it once they realize how much better the world is with one less bum in his early twenties hogging all the oxygen.

But then things took a turn for the Twilight Zone. I know what you're thinking now: _But messere, what could possibly be weirder than going to sleep and finding yourself stranded in the Mass Effect universe?_ Simple: falling to sleep again and finding yourself stranded in the _Dragon Age_ universe.

For a while I lived two distinct lives in two distinct timelines; one in which I accompanied Commander Kaelyn Shepard and the crew of the original _Normandy _to thwart the rogue agent Saren Arterius, and another in which I was conscripted into the Grey Wardens and forced to adventure around Ferelden in place of the person who should have been the main character of it all, hoping to the Maker that I could measure up and end the Fifth Blight with even half as much grace. Suddenly my relatively contented new life was fraught with complications and responsibilities way out of my league, and I was left scrambling to keep up.

Then Terumi Arai stumbled into my life on the planet Feros and a whole new "dimension" (pardon the pun) was added to my troubles... you see, Terumi didn't belong in the Mass Effect universe, either. She originates from a different story entirely, an obscure little one-shot manga story that lasts all of six pages, and of course she knew who I was almost right away... because she was born with the ability to hear the truth of what people are thinking simply by looking at them. The difference between me and her, however, is that she had a life to return to — a life worth returning to. So now I feel obliged to help her find her way back to whichever iteration of modern-day Japan she mysteriously disappeared from. Neither she nor I actually believes it to be possible. Oh, and at some point a romance blossomed between us. Still not sure how that happened, and it's rather unsettling to have a girlfriend who can read your _every thought_ (I can't even lie successfully in the face of the age-old question, "Does this dress make me look fat?"), but hey, I'm not complaining. At least I won't die a virgin if this all goes pear-shaped.

But I've only explained about two of me, haven't I? Sorry for getting side-tracked. It's much more pleasant to dwell on the cute Japanese mind-reader than it is to remember what my _present _self has been caught up in. You see, it was several months after the defeat of Saren Arterius in the _Mass Effect_ universe, and shortly after arriving in Amaranthine in Ferelden, that I fell asleep and, I dunno, _manifested_ another self in a third reality. Which leaves me wondering why this keeps happening to me... why do I keep, I dunno, multiplying and manifesting in all these different realities? Am I a freak accident of nature, or is there some underlying purpose to it all?

And why do I gain new powers whenever it happens?

That's the weirdest part of all of it, by my reckoning. Mere hours after waking up on the Citadel, I experienced an intense tingling sort of _fit_ that had me doubled over and twitching, almost seizing up in the street, in fact. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that I had developed nodules of Element Zero all over my nervous system... in other words, I had the potential to become a powerful biotic. Several days after waking up in Ferelden, I had a similar fit and eventually discovered that I had established a connection to the dream world known as the Fade... and thereby gained the innate talents of a mage. And it wasn't just that second self who gained this power, either. Over time, the power and knowledge that my Ferelden incarnation gained in the arcane arts trickled across timelines into the mind of that first "self," and Commander Shepard found herself harboring a soldier with a secret talent for hurling fireballs and healing wounds with honest-to-gods magic. And I have a feeling it's not going to stop there.

The only question is, now that I'm here on Cocoon, exactly _what _new talents will I gain, and how many of them will augment my other selves?

And just how many _other_ other selves will I spawn before this ends? Will it ever end? Just what the fuck is going on with me, anyway?

...What's that? You didn't get my name? Oh, right. Where are my manners? I must have left them behind in Amaranthine. Well, it's no great loss. Oghren needs them more than I do.

My name is Nathan Redgrave. Welcome to my life... my royally, supremely, monumentally, thrice-fucked-and-shot-to-hell life. Or, lives. Whatever.


	2. I: Bodhum

**Disclaimer:** The _Final Fantasy_ franchise belongs to Square Enix, and it's sufficiently well-known that you shouldn't need me to actually say that unless you've been living under a rock for the past decade-and-a-half. As an entirely unrelated note, is it too much to ask that someone out there with some modicum of writing talent compose a decent _Final Fantasy _crossover fic that doesn't revolve around ZOMGSLASH? That'd be great, thanks.

**~V~**

**- Chapter One -  
**"**Bodhum"**

**~V~**

The fun thing is this: I woke up in the goddamn ocean this time. When I woke up on the Citadel, it was in an alleyway. When I woke up in Denerim, it was in an alleyway. I guess cosmic forces beyond my comprehension decided that it would be monotonous if I woke up in an alleyway three times in a row, so they dropped me in the goddamn ocean.

It was well past midnight and nobody was there to find me washed up on the shore, so I guess I should count my blessings and thank God or the Maker or the asari-Goddess-that-totally-isn't-a-Prothean or... Pulse or Etro, I guess, that I didn't drown. That said, waking up to a hacking fit as you frantically gasp for air on an unfamiliar shore is not exactly an ideal way to start a day. It's especially disconcerting for yours truly, as I typically wake up in the morning remembering two different places in which I've fallen asleep (in this case, that's either my quarters in Vigil's Keep or my apartment on Zakera Ward), and when _none _of one's multiple memories coincide with one's present situation, it tends to be rather tempting to panic.

I didn't panic, of course. I didn't survive that mess on Virmire or go toe-to-talon with the Archdemon Urthemiel just to lose my head over mysteriously waking up in an alternate reality _yet again_. Still, though, the "nearly-drowning" part I really could have done without.

My first order of business was to get my bearings, but the town I woke up in wasn't really the most recognizable place in videogame history. _Final Fantasy XIII_ didn't really have many playable town sections, after all, and the only portion of the game that lets the player actually explore Bodhum is this one flashback sequence where you take control of Snow. So I wound up camping out for five hours in front of what looked like an open-air bar or tavern, letting the calm monotony of the ocean waves lull me into a pleasant state of zone-out in which the passage of time no longer registered for me. When the sun went up and I heard movement inside the bar, I stepped inside and introduced myself as a wandering tourist, and then asked in an offhand way what town I'd wandered into.

I probably should have recognized Lebreau at a glance with that distinctive, sextacular outfit and all... but cut me some slack, here. You'd be surprised how unfamiliar all these familiar faces look in flesh-and-blood live action.

So here I am, and I suppose it could be worse. I don't have the money for food and shelter at the moment, and it has occurred to me that I should go back to Lebreau's little cafe and ask where a wandering tourist might find a little work in this town, but the things I know about the future of this world (and in particular this _town_) make me leery of making any sudden moves. I'm sitting on a little wooden pier not far from the cafe, gazing absently out at the horizon as Cocoon's artificial sun — which is actually the fal'Cie called Phoenix, if memory serves — burns in its stationary position in the sky above, at the very center of Cocoon. There was a very clever sort of illusionary "sunrise" effect an hour or two ago, but the only real sun in the sky is Phoenix. I can't help but find the unnatural _stillness_ of that fake sun to be just a little bit unsettling.

I'm running through my possible options here and coming up blank. This time, evidently, I materialized in this world with my side-arm on my belt; due mostly to what went down in Ferelden, both of my "other selves" developed an unbreakable habit of going to sleep with at least one weapon close at hand, and in this case that means my Omni-tool and my newly-purchased HMWP heavy pistol. The pistol is equipped with an ammo mod that generates slugs specifically designed to pierce armor, and the _Mass Effect_ universe hasn't developed thermal clip technology yet, so all I need to worry about is maintaining my gun and keeping enough viable Omni-gel on hand to make new ammo blocks for those occasions when the gun runs out of metal to make slugs with. I'd probably be up Shit Creek without a paddle if my gun needed specially-made thermal clips for heat management...

So, I have a weapon and my basic Omni-tool (and, thus, my Omni-blade) to fight with if I need it, and that's definitely a good thing. I still have my biotics and all of the Fade magic I learned to use during my adventures as a Grey Warden, but either one of those is likely to be mistaken for l'Cie magic, which would bring the full military might of PSICOM down on my head. A gun, on the other hand, is perfectly ordinary to have on hand in this world... hell, Sazh Katzroy is a civilian airship pilot in this world and he has a pair of handguns that can combine into a Chicago Typewriter. My mass-accelerator pistol will probably look tame by comparison. And with the tech that the Cocoon military has on-hand, the flash-manufactured molten metal blade produced by my Omni-tool probably won't appear too extraordinary.

So I have the means to defend myself without causing the population of the planet to riot against me. Check.

The question is, where do I go from here? I should probably put some distance between me and Bodhum, since the Purge starts here and all, and really, I'm not inclined to mess about in this timeline anymore than I was in the other two. I only wound up on the _Normandy _because Captain Anderson — Captain _Fucking _Anderson — decided to assign me to the Eden Prime ground team in place of Corporal Jenkins. I only got swept into the quest to slay the Archdemon because my nobility over-ruled my good sense and I caught the attention of Duncan mere hours after waking up in Denerim. Either of those situations could have gone sour _very_ easily... hell, if I hadn't spent a year training for active duty before they even came up, I wouldn't have lasted five minutes.

But a nagging possibility keeps occurring to me as I sit here staring into space, and it just won't leave me alone.

You see, after the events of _Final Fantasy XIII _come to a close, there's supposed to be a sequel story. I've only played _some _of it, and I haven't even spoiled the ending this time. The thing is, _Final Fantasy XIII-2_, which takes place three years after the original, is a story that involves copious amounts of time travel.

That could be my ticket to finding out what's going on with me and these alternate universes.

Thing is, the surest way to make sure I can follow Serah and Noel on that adventure is to tag along with Lightning and company on the first adventure, and every bone in my body is screaming "Don't do it!" over and over as I turn that possibility over in my mind. I remember a parody story about a self-insert chick I read once, who tried to help Snow fight PSICOM and got blown to smithereens in one chapter's space of time. I'm seized by an insane urge to cackle like a lunatic right there on the pier at the image of myself doing the same.

Quashing that emotion, I force myself to think rationally again. It's true that I've survived two perilous adventures already, and _Dragon Age: Origins_ in particular wasn't exactly a walk in the park. I'm not some greenhorn fresh outta Basic, after all. I think defeating an Archdemon and holding my own against a rogue Spectre are worthy enough credentials that I can go through with this and expect to live to see that crystal pillar at the end of it all. The real issue is that I may somehow muck up the timeline and cause one or more of the game's "party members" to get killed along the way. Or that — as it did when I wandered into the Denerim Alienage that day — my urge to protect innocents might provoke me into doing something that royally screws up the necessary sequence of events. And the Purge involves quite a lot of unnecessary death that I just know I'll be inclined to do something about. That goes double for _XIII-2_, a game that I haven't even finished _playing _yet and a story which I wouldn't know how _not _to fuck up.

Still wracked with indecision, I shake my head and stand up. It's not worth worrying any more about, I realize, until I know for sure just _when _the Purge will occur. It could be tomorrow, or it could be a year or more from now, it could be next week or next month... the only thing I know for sure at this moment is that Lebreau is running the cafe, which means it's not such a distant thing.

I turn back toward the cafe and set off across the beach, checking my Omni-tool's holographic watch as I go; I set it to match the clock in Lebreau's cafe before I left. It's ten-thirty in the morning. With a slight jolt I realize I've been sitting on the pier for over two hours.

Deactivating the small holodisplay on my wrist with a casual flick of my finger, I keep walking toward the cafe, noting peripherally that my Omni-tool has drawn a few curious stares from the villagers moving to and fro on the beach. I can only imagine their expressions had I brought up the entire interface, which would have enveloped not just my wrist but my hand and forearm. Well, whatever. Nothing about their reactions betrays anything but innocent curiosity, so my Omni-tool's watch, at least, won't register as magic to these people.

As I enter the bar the sound of an excited young man's ranting meets my ears:

"...And it had this awesome asymmetrical thing goin' on, like, with one leg long and the other short, and the shin of the left leg was this sort of mesh, right? I wish you could've seen the designs. I asked where he bought it, but he said he custom-tailored it himself. Bummer, really. Now I'm gonna be scouring every shop I go to for something even half as cool —"

The voice belongs to a man sitting at the counter, one with a familiar mess of long blue hair and a rather unique assortment of clothing decorated (weirdly enough) with feathers on the right side of his waist. Oh hi there, Yuj, I'd almost forgotten what a fashion nut you are...

Lebreau, whose face was adorned with a most delicious expression of long-suffered boredom, looks up at my approach and cuts across her friend's tirade — loudly — "Hey again, new guy! You here for an early lunch?"

"I wish I had money to pay you with," I say quite honestly. NORA're cool people in my book, if a bit too brash and cocksure for their own good, so I'd quite like to give them a little business. "Unfortunately," I add, "Finances are... nonexistent. I was hoping you might be able to point me toward some work so I can, you know, eat and stuff."

"Lookin' for work, huh..." Lebreau murmurs, tilting her head to one side and tapping her chin with a thoughtful finger. At the counter, Yuj twists around and gives me (or rather, my freshly sun-dried Alliance fatigues) a cursory but surprisingly critical once-over. "Actually," the barmaid says suddenly in that a-big-bright-bulb-just-switched-on-in-my-skull tone of voice, "I could use an extra hand around here for the next few days. With the festival coming up, we're going to see a lot of business. So how about this: you work evenings here through the rest of the week, for standard pay. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are on the house. Sound good?"

"You got a spare bed or couch where I can shack up in the meantime?" I ask.

"Oh, sure," Lebreau says. "I guess if you can't pay for food, you can't pay for the inn, either. Sure, you can take the couch back there." She jerks her thumb vaguely over her shoulder, probably indicating living quarters somewhere behind the cafe proper. "Your shift runs two through ten. You'll be helping me serve, clean, and since you look like a man who can hold his own in a fight, you'll be playing bouncer as necessity dictates. Normally we don't need one, Bodhum's a quiet place. But we get all sorts from all over at this time of year, so be ready for anything."

"Right, it looks like we have an arrangement," I say.

"Just give me your account's deposit address so I can pay you and I'll see about getting you some lunch if you're up for it."

Oh, shitpickles. I didn't even think of this. Stupid, stupid! "Um... that's a problem," I mutter. "I don't exactly _have_ an account."

"What?" asks Yuj in surprise before Lebreau can voice her own incredulity. "How do you not have a bank account? It's impossible to move gil _without _one."

"Mostly I just relied on my mother's account until recently," I invent wildly. (Lies based on nuggets of truth, I find, are the most effective lies of all.) "I was... you could say I was a good-for-nothing sort of layabout back home. I left 'cause I wanted to change that. Shape up, you know? I've toughened up and all, but I guess with all the monster-killing and stuff, I never got around to making a bank account."

"Right," says Lebreau, "I got it. Don't worry, setting up an account isn't that hard. I don't suppose you bothered to take any of your documentation with you when you left. Where'd you live, anyway?"

"Palumpolum," I say at once, "Felix Heights. Nice place, but I've got no home there anymore."

"It _is _a nice place," Yuj puts in, leaning back on his stool and smiling reminiscently.

Lebreau nods. "Well," she says, "normally I'd be a bit suspicious, but... you look like a good guy, really. Got that sort of good-guy feel, if that makes any sense." I quirk an eyebrow at this peculiar statement, remembering something that Wynne once said to me as we were setting up camp during the Blight. "So here's what I'm gonna do. When I get a break, I'll set up an account under my name, with my ID, and I'll give you the info. You can use that account until you can start your own. Just don't go doing anything illegal with it."

I open my mouth to say thanks and find for a moment that I can't adequately express my gratitude. Lebreau is taking a totally blind leap of faith for my sake. Damn, man. This isn't the first time I've felt bad about lying to cover the crazy truth behind my presence in one of these alternate worlds, but it's probably one of the times I've felt the most guilty.

"I... thank you," I say at last. "That doesn't say nearly enough, but thank you, miss...?"

"Call me Lebreau," she says merrily, turning her back and strolling over to the stove behind the bar. "Now that we've got that figured out, what would you like for lunch? I don't like to brag, but I make some _killer_ gumbo..."

"Gumbo sounds good," I say, taking a seat at the bar next to Yuj. It isn't long before more customers begin to trickle in as the clock on the wall ticks closer to noon, and to lunchtime.

And closer to the Purge, of course, but I can't think about that right now. This gumbo just kicks too much ass.

**~V~**

**Author's Note: **Wow, this chapter turned out way shorter than I thought it would. Still, it just feels right to end it here, so I will.


	3. II: Fight or Flight, Left or Right?

**Disclaimer:** The _Final Fantasy_ franchise belongs to Square Enix, and it's sufficiently well-known that you shouldn't need me to actually say that unless you've been living under a rock for the past decade-and-a-half. As an entirely unrelated note, is it too much to ask that someone out there with some modicum of writing talent compose a decent _Final Fantasy _crossover fic that doesn't revolve around ZOMGSLASH? That'd be great, thanks.

**~V~**

**- Chapter Two -  
**"**Fight or Flight, Left or Right?"**

**~V~**

Three days after arriving in Bodhum, it's the eve of the fireworks festival: it happens tomorrow night. To be honest, I'm tempted to stick around Bodhum just for the spectacle (you don't see fireworks nearly as fantastic _or _close-up in the real world, now, do you?), but I can't afford to make hasty decisions in my situation. Fortunately, my odd sort of cross-dimensional memory transfer ability has proved itself to be quite a boon in this case... I can, for example, have the "me" in the _Mass Effect_ universe browse the extranet for information about certain _Final Fantasy _games I may not have actually played through in the real world...

I'm sitting now in front of the public access terminal in Lebreau's cafe. It's ten in the morning, so my shift for this day doesn't start for a few hours yet. Working at a bar is every bit as boring as it sounds, especially when you're not even doing any of the cooking or drink-mixing, so I'll spare you those details. I've glimpsed Lightning once or twice on my way through town, obviously out on patrol, and on a few occasions run across a very preoccupied looking Serah Farron. I chanced a glance at her arm, and she's definitely been branded. I thought I even spotted Vanille once. Mostly I just worked. I've also briefly met the other core members of NORA, but I've been a bit evasive about speaking to them. I don't want to have any unintentional effects on the timeline until I've actually decided whether or not I want to have an effect at all.

I skim the online catalogs available at this terminal, paying only a token amount of attention as my mind turns over the information I have and I consider my current predicament. Tomorrow, the Pulse fal'Cie known as Anima will be discovered in a nearby Vestige thanks to the unfortunate young boy who was branded as a Sanctum l'Cie a few days ago. No real information regarding the incident at Euride Gorge was released to the public, but wild and fearful speculation about the event and the possible involvement of (le gasp!) Pulse l'Cie has been a favorite topic of gossip around the cafe; it's impossible to work in this place and not hear about it once or twice an hour from four or five different people.

I know what happened, of course: Oerba Yun Fang and Oerba Dia Vanille, having both awakened from crystal stasis within the Pulse Vestige, infiltrated the power plant where the fal'Cie Kujata dwelt, unwittingly causing the fal'Cie to create a random l'Cie to defend it. The young son of Sazh Katzroy, Dajh, was the unlucky child to be branded. And he has been gifted with the ability to track down entities with Pulse-born magic inside of them.

I shake my head, biting my lip and focusing my eyes more convincingly on the screen in front of me, which lists off a variety of civilian-grade weapons I don't give two flying fucks about. Two minutes ago, I was browsing protective wear, and before that, restoratives. Civilians don't have access to much beyond basics, so there's not much of value to be seen here.

A few days ago, my primary concern was whether I might blindly cause some world-warping catastrophe if I interfered with the events of _Final Fantasy XIII-2_. Now, however, I know this not to be an issue at all: it turns out that Square existed in the Mass Effect universe, and so did _Final Fantasy XIII-2_. But it's weird. Only games that had already been made in my own time have actually been published by this otherworld version of Square Enix. _Versus, _any potential _Final Fantasy XIII-3 _that may or may not be planned, _Kingdom Hearts III_, none of it was ever made, and I get the strangest sense that it's not because Square is fated to go belly-up in the real world before releasing any of those games. But exactly what the true significance of this could be, I have no freaking idea.

But I digress. The point is this: Caius Ballad is slated to cause a world-warping catastrophe all on his little old own, and doesn't need help from random interdimensional interlopers when it comes to destroying the world. Damn, did I once respect Kefka's relative level of villainous win? Rearranging the continents and plunging the world into a global apocalypse seems so _small time_ next to maneuvering the heroes of the story into fucking over the entire timeline.

And of course, knowing what I do, I've been plagued by the notion of _stopping it from happening in the first place_, just like my other self back in Amaranthine has been considering the merits of preventing the war between mages and templars that is scheduled to start some years in his future due to events that transpire in the city of Kirkwall.

This is big, though. It's obvious that Square Enix has something planned for the aftermath of that so-called "Eternal Paradox," and I'm still not sure preventing it would be such a good idea. I was confronted with a similar uncertainty when Morrigan brought me her Dark Ritual offer on the night before the Battle of Denerim, and far from feeling like I was doing the right thing, turning down that offer made me wonder if maybe I was preventing something vital to the future of Thedas. But that wasn't even a choice that only I could make; the real Hero of Ferelden could have prevented that as well. This is different. Caius Ballad's plot to screw over all of time succeeds regardless of the player's actions, which means that preventing them would constitute a _massive, unquestionable change in this world's timeline._

And then I ponder the question of just _how _to stop Caius without actually killing him, and I come up completely blank. Even if I stick my nose in, there's no guarantee I can do anything about it. Hell, there isn't even any guarantee that I'll be able to travel through the Time Gates! Will they reject me, like they reject Snow? And even if I can do this crazy thing I'm planning out in my mind, what about Serah? Any widespread changes I make to the future will probably cause enough ripples to literally melt her brain, which is supposed to happen anyway, but I just have to save her life if I bother trying to save anything because if I don't then all three of my "selves" are going to be having nightmares for _years_. And damn, that's not something I can just stop. I can't catch Sephiroth with a simple Singularity to stop him from impaling the heroine. This is a problem with Serah's visions. A significant enough change in the timeline will force her to see so many changes in history that it literally overloads her consciousness and kills her.

This decision is so monumentally complicated and yet so infuriatingly simple at the same time.

The fact of the matter is, no matter how wary I am of changing the timeline, Caius Ballad has forced my hand. I need to prevent him from causing that paradox. If I don't, then at least _one _of me is probably going to die. And that's just not on.

So the question is "Fight, or Flight?" And the list of answers: "Fight," "Attack," "Charge!" and "Of course, my princess!" It's a total But Thou Must deal. Much like the ones that got me mixed up in those other two adventures, now that I think on it...

I cut off my train of thought right there, as it's drifting unnervingly close to dangerous waters. Thinking about the possibility that some _being _is intentionally maneuvering me into these harrowing situations makes it hard to concentrate on anything else.

So that settles that, then, doesn't it? I have to stick around and let myself be Purged, and somehow make my way to the Pulse Vestige and let myself be made into a Pulse l'Cie. So the question now is, what do I do when the time comes?

The way I see it, there are two definite tickets into that Vestige. The first is to follow Lightning, the second is to follow Snow. Now, the first path is obviously the path of least resistance... all I have to do is survive and keep up, and I'll get there without changing the timeline. But to follow Snow means to...

_To witness the death of Nora Estheim._

I wince at the thought, and in my mind's eye I'm already playing out a variety of outcomes to that scenario. At best I resist the urge to do something that prevents her death, and feel like a bastard for not saving a good woman from a tragic fate. At worst I give in to the urge to save her, thereby sheltering Hope from the chain of events that drags him into the l'Cie adventure to begin with. Which normally I wouldn't be so much against doing, but... Hope is rather important to the sequel. And now I need to decide whether to save someone who deserves saving, or do nothing in order to protect others.

If there was some... some way to do both at once... but... but anything I can think to do that would prevent that missile from blowing up the bridge involves revealing one or more of my powers in front of a whole flock of anti-PSICOM rebels who might mistake me for a l'Cie and gun me down on the spot.

Damn it all, damn it all, and now that I've thought of this I'll feel like an asshole if I take the easy way out and follow Lightning instead...

I log off of the terminal, blow out a sigh, and get up. With a yawn, I turn toward the cafe's exit and stare out at the beautiful Bodhum shore. I can almost see the two of them standing there with their backs to me. On the left, Lightning, that red shoulder-cape-thing of hers fluttering in the breeze and one hand on her waste as she looks out with cold, clinical detachment, eyes fixed firmly on her objective. On the right, Snow Villiers, punching fist into palm in his eagerness to get out there and lay the smackdown on the forces of evil and injustice, utterly convinced in his half-blind frenzy that it's actually possible to save everyone, _and _their mothers.

Lightning on the left. Clinical, objective focus on the task at hand. Brutal precision, eyes on the target. _Renegade._

Snow on the right. Idealistic and gung-ho, ready to risk it all to fight the good fight. Naïve morality, eyes glinting with determination to do the impossible. _Paragon_.

Internally, I heave an exasperated sigh at the knowledge that I'm incapable of choosing anything other than the one on the right. You see, guys? This is why the bad guys always win... because good is _dumb_.

**~V~**

**Author Note:** Another short chapter, one in which nothing actually happens, no less. Not sure how I feel about this, to be honest. The "Thirteen Days" portion of this story was always going to gloss over most of the Thirteen Days entirely, so I guess I'm not surprised. Still, I'd appreciate a review or two if any of you have some thoughts on how I'm doing so far.


End file.
